Sorting Through the Trump Financial Documents: eDiscovery Lawyer Tells How Prosecutors Search For Clues

Bobby Malhotra, Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP, Los Angeles: The team of prosecutors will be trying to unravel mounds of complex information and data. The first step in the process may entail loading all the collected data and documents into a single, searchable and secure Web-based repository, which will allow access as needed for all counsel, staff and consultants/experts, subject to any specific security and confidentiality requirements. Many such repositories also have coding, outlining and/or fact and legal issue organizing and annotation capabilities, which can be useful in building a trial theme strategy, as well as sharing content — and given the alleged collaboration here between prosecutor at the state and local level, an online repository may be particularly useful in coordinating efforts among attorneys in multiple offices as they sift through the evidence.

Once the data is loaded to a repository, the legal teams will cull through and analyze millions of pages to identify key documents — and just as important — key witnesses and clues. Given the sheer volume of information, reviewing each page in a linear fashion will likely not be an option. Instead the review process will likely entail a more targeted approach where prosecutors use traditional metadata and text searches to hone in on certain data sets, combined with AI-based supervised and unsupervised machine learning tools which use algorithms and statistical methods to help legal teams identify and classify potentially relevant evidence.